How Do You Prepare for a Professional Energy Audit?

Before your professional energy auditor shows at your home, you will want to list all of the known problems in the house with the heat, air conditioning, and condensation. You will also want to have a year’s worth of utility bills for the auditor to use in helping to establish what they should focus on during your home’s audit. If you can’t get this material, the audit can still occur, but you will just pay more money if the auditor has to test everything. Other than that, the only other thing you will need to do to prepare for the audit is make sure you can be home when the auditor visits.

What Will the Professional Home Energy Auditor Do?

The auditor will first collect your old bills and make notes of the pre-existing problems that you point out to him or her. Then, they will conduct a survey of the outside of your home to note the size, number of windows, wall area, etc. The auditor will then take a look at what the behavior is of the people living in your home. These details will consist of how many people are home during the day, your average thermostat settings, are all of the rooms used?, and how many people live in your house. Most auditors will allow you to walk around with them during the survey so you can ask questions.

Choosing an Energy Auditor

Just like choosing a doctor, you will want to find someone that you can trust for inspecting your home. Your electric or gas company may offer a service or refer professionals to you. Also, you can normally find companies that offer auditing services listed under “Energy” in the phone book. Before you hire the auditor, you may want to consider asking for references to see if previous clients were satisfied with the service.

Once the auditor is done with your home energy audit, you will receive a written report making recommendations for improvements you can make in the house to improve its efficiency. Taking these actions with other green home tips will help make your home more efficient and can reduce your monthly cost of living.

Tips to Go Green in Your Home

Go Green Tip #1: Use Energy Efficient Light Bulbs

Replace the traditional light bulbs in your home with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL’s). You will pay a bit more in up-front cost for the bulbs, but they last up to 10 times longer than traditional bulbs do and will lessen your electric bill. If you don’t have the money to replace all of the bulbs in your home, start doing so a room at a time to lessen the impact. In the rooms that you don’t replace traditional bulbs with CFL’s, consider replacing two lower wattage bulbs, with one of higher wattage. For example, 1, 100 watt bulb can be used to replace two 75 watt bulbs with minimal impact on the amount of light given off, but uses up to 1/3^rd less electricity.

Go Green Tip #2: Adjust Your Refrigerator and Freezer Temperatures

Your refrigerator and freezer are normally the biggest energy consumers in your home. You can maximize the efficiency of your household unites by setting the refrigerator at 37 degrees Fahrenheit and the freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Go Green Tip #3: Adjust Your Air Conditioning

Your household mice don’t need to be cold while you’re at work. If you don’t like to come home to a stuffy house, programmable thermostats have dropped significantly in price. Set the thermostat to 85 degrees when you’re at work or out of the home. When you’re home, start at 78 degrees and gradually go cooler until you find the warmest setting that you’re comfortable with. Conversely, in the winter, set your temperature to the 50′s when at work (you can go even lower if you don’t have a danger of pipes freezing), and start at 60 degree Fahrenheit and gradually go warmer until you find a comfortable setting for the winter time in your home. Turning your air conditioning or heat off completely for short periods can result in spikes in electricity use and greater cost for the start up current, so its normally better to not turn the unit off completely for time frames of less than 24 hours.

Go Green Tip #4: Conduct Regular Air Conditioning Maintenance

Every season, have a professional service your air conditioning unit before it gets hot. Then, make sure you change the system air filters at intervals of every three to six months. This will help your heat and air conditioning run more efficiently and save you money in the long term.

Go Green Tip #5: Buy Curtains for the Sunny Sides of Your Home

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you get curtains to put up on the side(s) of your home that receive direct sunlight, it will help keep the house cooler and lessen the impact on your air conditioner and electric bill.

Go Green Tip #6: Save Money in Your Bathroom

Waste less water and save money buy buying low-flow, water-efficient shower heads. These units have been proven to save a family of four up to 280 gallons of water of month without much loss of water pressure. You’ll make your money back on the shower heads within one to two years.

Go Green Tip #7: Buy Plants for Your Home

You don’t have to go crazy, but having a few plants inside of your home will help remove air pollutants, and just might look good too!

Go Green Tip #8: Go Solar in Small Quantities

You don’t have to install full-up solar panels on your home to benefit from solar energy. You can start out by using solar-powered lighting in your yard or patio instead of the wired or battery driven lights that many of us use.

Go Green Tip #9: Use a Laptop

Laptops use a significantly less amount of electricity than desktops do. If you have the means, use a laptop at home when you can.

Go Green Tip #10: Reduce Your Junk Mail

Reduce your junk mail by signing up with the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service. You will see a significant reduction in your junk mail within three months of signing up.

Go Green Tip #11: Check Your Water Heater Settings

For every 10 degree reduction in your hot water heater temperature setting you can accomplish, you will save between 3 and 5 percent on your bill. Many times your hot water heater will be set to 140 degrees Fahrenheit at the manufacturer. If your dishwasher has a booster heater, you should be able to reduce this setting to 120 degrees. If it does not have a booster heater, then you will want to set it around 130 degrees depending on the manufacturer’s guidance. When the water temperature is reduced to 120 degrees, it also helps to reduce the mineral buildup in your water heater and pipes.

These 11 steps are not all encompassing, but should give you a good head start on going green in your home.